Landing in Rome

Nelly and I spent last week in Italy. It was a continuous rush of adventure facilitated partially by renting a car. It all started minutes to the end of Monday when we landed in Rome. There we were, knowing we could book a car but unable to actually locate the rental facilities. As we struggled to follow the signs to the rental place I began to rush which contrasted with Nelly’s confidence that everything would work out fine.

After figuring out the car and checking in at the hostel, we decided to take advantage of the bright empty city night and visited the Fontana di Trevi and the Villa de Medici.

What an experience this was. Rome was empty. We took in the night, the light, the statues, the fountain–aside from the two of us the only humans we saw were a couple cops sitting in a car near the fountain. At the time, I didn’t realize what a privilege this was, knowing not the significance of the fountain nor how crowded it would be in daylight. I would find out a week later when we returned to Rome.

The next day I spent a couple hours struggling trying to park in Rome. At the time I was very new to Italy’s laissez-faire attitude towards parking (and driving in general). Finally we parked in a parking structure and went to the Mercato Centrale–an indoor market with lots of food an coffee. Here Nelly took her class and I went to see some parks, some churches, and the Colosseum.

I’m still learning how to visit cities. I’m not sure what the best solution is. Should I get a list of all the things people say to do in a city and look at what appeals to me or should I just wander around discovering things? In this case I found a basilica on a map and walked to it. After exploring the basilica for a while, I saw a park and wandered around. The park was a perfect example of what it’s like to wander Rome (or Italy for that matter). They have buildings all around, but places with ruins interspersed (and fenced off). This park was full of cool ruins. As I kept walking I ran into the Colosseum. You might think the ruins in the park were just because of the proximity to the Colosseum, but this kind of thing was all over the place.